Audrey Dutton, Idaho Capital Sun

Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez seemed to be testing the limits of the judicial system Tuesday, as they continued to ignore a judge’s order and didn’t show up in court for the second time in a lawsuit brought by St. Luke’s Health System.

Gesturing to an empty defendant’s bench Tuesday afternoon, an attorney for St. Luke’s remarked to the judge that Idaho’s justice system “contemplates the parties actually participating” in the legal process.

“It’s likely that we’re going to be frequently needing the court’s help to move this along,” the attorney said. ...

Ammon Bundy and associate Diego Rodriguez are not following legal processes in a lawsuit that stems from a child protection case, according to new court filings.

Bundy ignored a court order, and Rodriguez is nowhere to be found, according to motions and affidavits filed this month by St. Luke’s Health System and its fellow plaintiffs — St. Luke’s CEO Chris Roth, the health system’s Boise hospital, and two health care providers.

The lawsuit filed in May accused the men and their closely linked political organizations — People’s Rights Network and Freedom Man PAC — of defamation and harassment....

Monoclonal antibody therapeutics are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration — the same kind of authorization the FDA gave to Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. The monoclonal antibodies are not yet FDA-approved like the Pfizer vaccine is.

Idaho health officials are working to make the drug available to people at greatest risk of hospitalization. However, they warn: monoclonal antibodies are no substitute for a vaccine. The drugs cannot prevent illness, they're not as effective as COVID-19 vaccination at keeping people out of the hospital, and they're not abundantly available like the vaccines are.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says 624 Idahoans have begun applying for help with funeral costs for loved ones who died of COVID-19.

So far, FEMA has approved 331 of those requests, for a total of $1.9 million in federal aid for COVID-19 funerals, according to a Sept. 20 news release.

The agency has provided more than $1.1 billion in financial assistance to nearly 170,000 people to help cover funeral costs for people who died of causes related to COVID-19 since Jan. 20, 2020, the release said....

It was the morning of Sept. 16, and Idaho had just hit “crisis standards," a point of last resort for health care. Hospitals had so many patients with COVID-19, the state gave them permission to downgrade medical care for everyone. That could mean discharging patients faster than usual, or it could mean the unthinkable: choosing who gets an intensive care bed or oxygen.

But the hospital was calm, and so was the man in the cowboy hat. He placed his worn Bible on the front desk and leaned in for a temperature check. He wasn't at Saint Al's because he was sick, he told the woman screening him for a visitor pass. He was there to minister to a patient being taken off a ventilator. He picked up his Bible and headed for the elevator.

A few hours later, a few floors up in the ICU, another patient called his family over Zoom. He said what might be his last goodbye, as doctors, nurses and a respiratory therapist got him ready for intubation....